The Down Under Diaries

Monday March 2

For surfers, being inside the Mick Fanning Coolangatta Rip Curl store is like being a kid in a candy store. Photo: Bielmann/SPL

Photo gallery above from Sunday on the Goldy. We hit up the Rip Curl team signing at the Mick Fanning Rip Curl store, hung out with some crew on the patio, and went mad at the Gold Coast premiere of A Fly In The Champagne. That’s right, the fun never stops down here…

9pm Just heard a pretty gnarly story over dinner…get this: During the girls contest today at Duranbah, one of the water patrol guys lost control of his PWC and fell off of it while trying to clear the lineup. The throttle somehow got stuck in full throttle mode and the thing raced out to sea like a guided missile—straight at an older guy on a stand up paddle board. Coming from a dude who saw it, it was like a freaking torpedo. The ski smashed into the guy, who for some reason wasn’t able to get out of the way, and he did not one, but two flips in the air. According to what we heard, the poor guy broke his femur and was rushed out of there and straight to the hospital. We could only speculate as to how this happened and the first question is, why didn’t the water patrol guy have a lanyard (that yanks the keys out of the machine when you fall off) wrapped around his wrist? Poor bloke…

A hideous, one-in-a-million accident at the Roxy Pro Gold Coast. Click HERE for the full story.

1PM Moving a little slow after last night’s A Fly In The Champagne movie premiere—there were something like 1,000 amped up surf fans at the Twin Towns venue! With a VIP room stocked with free Corona’s, a handful of World Champions, tons of industry bros, and plenty of Gold Coast eye candy. Suffice to say a good time was had by all! A crew of us went wake surfing on the Tweed River today too. After getting over the fear of being mauled by a Bull Shark, it turned out to be a hell time! Chris went to some water amusement park and reported that 40 of the top 45 were there as well…lots of wet men…sounds like somewhere he’d go (I had to throw that in there as he’s right next to me asking if I posted anything today).

They ran the first round of the Roxy Pro toady and guess what? The rookies ripped! Coco Ho just dropped by the house here and she was stoked with her second place finish to Chelsea Hedges. Rookies winning their heats today were Alana Blanchard, Bruna Schmitz, Paige Hareb, and Sally Fitzgibbons. Silvana Lima from Brazil got a perfect 10 for this one wave where she blasted a big air midway through, too. Good on ya girls! Click HERE for the ASP write up…

Sally Fitzgibbons en-route to a whopping 18.77 points and a victory over Silvana Lima and Megan Abubo. Photo courtesy ASP